Amanda Wallace, 1834-1898

WALLACE, LOCKE, GLIDDEN

Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 3/15/2011 at 20:48:35

One of the oldest graves in the Armstrong Grove Cemetery contains the remains of Amanda M. [Locke] Wallace. She was buried just six years after the city of Armstrong was founded, just east of the internal roadway near the Madden Chapel. It is quite unusual for members of six generations of a family to be buried in a single cemetery, and she represented the first generation of these six generations to be buried in the Armstrong Grove Cemetery. She died in Iowa Lake Township of Emmet County on the 7th of March 1898, 63 years, 2 months and 2 days after her birth to her parents, Captain James Locke and Betsy Glidden; this occurred on 12 December 1834. She was raised near Moriah, Essex County, New York, near the western shores of Lake Champlain and near the historic Revolutionary War landmarks of Crown Point and Ticonderoga.

Amanda had one elder sibling, a sister, Laura, who was about four years older and who married James H. Barnett (son of Asa Waterman Barnet and Hannah Lamson of Crown Point, New York). The Barnett's lived their last years in Iowa Lake Township, near the Minnesota-Iowa border, and are both buried in the Tenhassen Cemetery in Martin County, Minnesota. Amanda and Laura also had two younger siblings, the first of whom was Daniel Locke, who died at the age of about one year on the 4th of July in 1836, sixty years after the founding of our nation. The second was James Locke, who was born four months later in October 1836. He lived only three years, and died on the 14th of March 1840.

Amanda's Mother passed away at the age of thirty-two on 29 March 1842, leaving Amanda, aged 7, and Laura, aged 11, without a mother. Less than three weeks later, Josiah Glidden, Amanda's uncle, her mother's brother, also died at the young age of thirty-two. As frequently happens when a young mother dies with young children to raise, a family member steps forward to assume the responsibility of raising the children. This was the case with Amanda and Laura Locke. This situation will be addressed in a later paragraph below.

Both Amanda's paternal and maternal ancestral lines are well documented and originated in England. And both lines participated in the Revolutionary War, many battles of which were waged in the immediate region where they lived.

The Charles Glidden family was first established in this country at Strawberry Bank near present-day Portsmouth, NH. His direct descendant and Amanda's maternal great grandfather, Jonathan Glidden, was a Revolutionary soldier.

The Locke family also had its origins in England and the first member to arrive in this country was William Locke, a young boy from the Stepney Parish in London, who was born on the 13th of December in 1628. He left London in a sailing vessel known as The Planter on April 11, 1635 and arrived at Boston on 7 June 1635, with other family members. He settled in Woburn, a suburb of Boston and lived his entire life there and became a Deacon of the Woburn Church. Four generations later his descendant, Abraham Locke became a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Abraham was a private in Capt. Benjamin Brown's Company, of the 37th Massachusetts Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bond. Abraham was also Amanda's great grandfather.

By about 1810 Abraham Locke's son, Daniel P. Locke, Amanda's paternal grandfather moved to Moriah in Essex County, NY just in time to participate in the War of 1812. Here he fought in the Battle of Plattsburg, September 11, 1814, as a private, in Capt. Thomas Winslow's Company. Abraham, Amanda's mother, Amanda's two infant brothers, and other family members were buried in the Spear Cemetery south of Moriah.

Captain James Locke, Amanda's father, spent most of his formative years near the shores of Lake Champlain and became closely associated with shipboard life. Family lore reports that at one time he was master of a clipper ship that sailed to the West Indies and bought rum and then sold it for "a penny a gill" on the New Bedford wharf. He also sailed on Lake Champlain, the Great Lakes, and mastered canal boats on the Erie Canal. When he finally retired from the water, he settled in Peru Township of Dunn County, Wisconsin Territory. Here he married his second wife, Clarissa Ewer in about 1845, three years before Wisconsin joined the Union. They had eight children: Betsy A. [wife of William E. Crandall], Emily A., Emma Isadore, Francis E. [wife of Warren Ayres], Marian Amelia [wife of Dr. Franklin Drinkwine, DVM], Harriett Louise [wife of Herbert Samuel Benjamin], and Rosa Locke [wife of Edgar W. Benjamin], and an unnamed son. The youngest, Rosa, was born when James was about 58 years of age. Captain James Locke died on 31 August 1882 at the age of 77 and was buried on land that he donated as the Peru Township Cemetery, also known as the Locke Cemetery in Dunn County, Wisconsin.

After the death of Amanda's mother in March of 1842, Amanda, age 7, and her older sister Laura, age 11, were raised by two aunts, Laura [Locke] Spear, [wife of Aldin Spear] and Eunice [Glidden] Mills, [wife of James Mills]. Six years later, in 1848, James Mills obtained a contract to rebuild a sawmill on the south end of Treat's Island in the middle of the Des Plaines River, south of Joliet, Illinois in Channahon Township. Moving with him was his wife, Eunice [Glidden] Mills, Amanda, now aged 14, and Laura Locke, now aged 18, and Eunice's brother Stephen Glidden. Stephen Glidden soon purchased the mill and operated it for five years. He became quite successful and owned twelve hundred acres of land in the area.

Today, an atlas of the area shows that the land adjacent to and east of Treat's Island, is known as "Millsdale", apparently named after James Mills, and is the site of a chemical plant known as "Stepan Chemicals". It manufactures industrial cationic and anionic surfactants, synthetic soaps, and ingredients for the hair care market, as well as many others.
Some of the former Stephen Glidden holdings are on or just north of what was previously known as the "Joliet Arsenal", on the east side of the Des Plaines River. A new National Cemetery resides in the area of the Arsenal today. North, up the river a few miles is a modern day gambling Casino, which services the city of Joliet. No land bridge today is available to
access Treat's island, which appears to be abandoned.

In 1848 the nearby city of Chicago was less than twenty years old, and was growing at a very rapid rate. It was the hub of commerce for the lumber, cattle and agricultural industries of the West, which provided these commodities to the growing city of Chicago and to the cities of the East. Railroads had not yet been introduced to the area; thus in order to facilitate the movement of goods from the rich prairies of Illinois to the East via Lake Michigan, a canal was constructed from Ottawa on the Illinois River eastward ninety miles to Bridgeport, a community of Chicago. This canal, started in 1836, was named the Illinois and Michigan Canal and it passed through Channahon Township as it opened for business in 1848.

The booming economic development of this area attracted many from the East who sought to increase their wealth and position in life. One such individual was William A. Wallace, son of John and Mary Wallace, of Essex County, NY. Although he was a stonemason in New York, he found employment as a master of canal boats on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. The first record of his employment was on 21 March 1851 when he signed the toll receipt for the canal boat "Mary", as it moved through Lockport, Illinois enroute from Bridgeport to Ottawa. It is likely that Amanda met William, her future husband, as a consequence of the fact that these canal boats passed through Channahon.

Since William's parents and some of his siblings were still living in Ticonderoga in Essex County, New York, Amanda and William returned there to marry on the 8th of August 1854. Here in Ticonderoga, a Baptist clergyman named Rev. Wright, in the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Tift and son, married them.

Amanda's uncle, Stephen Glidden, was now beginning to accumulate considerable wealth from his endeavors back in Channahon Township in Will County, Illinois and offered William and Amanda an opportunity to return to Illinois and to assist in Stephen's farming operation. This offer was accepted and they moved to Channahon. By the end of 1860, William and Mary had started a family in Channahon, which included the following children: Eunice Elenora [Ella] Wallace [age 5], J. Levi Glidden [Lee] Wallace [age 4], Lora Wallace [age 1], and Charlotte Amanda Wallace [age 1month].

Her first daughter, Eunice Elenora, or Ella as she was called, was likely named after the aunt that raised Amanda, Eunice [Glidden] Mills. Ella later became the wife of Bertine P. Clark [son of Chester Rockwell Clark and Jane Newman]. Bertine and Ella are also buried in the Armstrong Grove Cemetery.

Another son, William Locke Wallace, was born to Amanda and William in February 1861, two months prior to the rebel attack on Fort Sumter. The events of April 1861 echoed across the land and threatened to tear the Nation apart. President Lincoln called for leaders of communities and counties to organize regiments of men dedicated to the preservation of the
Union. William Wallace and many of his friends and neighbors heard the call and enlisted at Wilmington, Illinois in the Will County Regiment on the 5th of August 1862. Lieutenant Knox mustered the Regiment at the Fairgrounds in Joliet on 20 August 1862. William was thirty-eight years of age at the time of his enlistment, but falsified his age as just twenty-eight.

The Will County Regiment became known at the Illinois 100th Volunteer Regimental Infantry and participated in battles at Stones River, Mission Ridge and Chickamauga. He was assigned to Company I as a private and served until 25 March 1865 when he was discharged at Mound City, Illinois.

Sometime after William departed for the War from Joliet on a troop train, Amanda gave birth to a child she called Bessie. Bessie never lived long enough to see her father return from the War. Amanda lost contact with William through the months and years and assumed he was dead. In order to educate her children she taught them herself in her home. As her sister
Laura Barnett and her family lived nearby, both families of children were included in the education. They had fixed up a room of her house for a schoolhouse. One day while teaching, one of the Barnett boys was restless, got up and walked around and looked out the window. Finally he shouted, "Here comes Uncle Willy! Here comes Uncle Willy!" There was William, walking down the road in a faded uniform and a pack on his back."

The following year in 1866 Amanda gave birth to their seventh child, J. Frank Wallace. While he was still an infant Amanda and William placed their household goods in a covered wagon and moved with their six children north across the prairies of Illinois and Wisconsin. William and Amanda settled on a farm on Cranberry Creek, west of Rock Falls, Dunn County, Wisconsin. [This area is immediately west of Eau Clair, Wisconsin.] Amanda's father, James Locke, was living with his second family in Peru Township at that time, so Amanda had family nearby. Amanda and William purchased the farm at Cranberry Creek from a Mr. James Swan, and lived in an old log house until 1882. Here in the old log house, Amanda gave birth to four additional children: Lillian May, Nina Etta, Edith Pamela, and Cora. Cora, her eleventh and last child lived less than a year and died on 20 September 1878. Amanda was now forty-eight years of age. In 1882 they built a new home at Cranberry Creek to replace the log house and since William was a stonemason, he built the basement.

William and his sons continued their farming operation for the next twelve years until William passed away on 27 July 1894. J. Levi Glidden [aka Lee] Wallace then continued the farming operation. William was buried in the Rock Falls Cemetery with full military honors. Amanda
then moved to Armstrong to be near several of her children who lived nearby and to be near her sister who lived in Iowa Lake Township. Among her children who were living near Armstrong were: Eunice Elenora [Ella] Wallace [wife of Bertine P. Clark], William Locke Wallace [He married Martha Graham and they lived in Fairmont], Charlotte Amanda Wallace, [She married Morris Follett. They lived at Truman, MN], and Edith Pamela Wallace [She married Clayton Follett].

When Amanda died on 7 March 1898 she was buried in the Follett burial plot beside her granddaughter, Fern Charlotte Follett, infant daughter of Edith Pamela Wallace and Clayton Clarence Follett.

Source: James M. Richmond, Naperville, Illinois, unpublished research. November 2004.

At the beginning of this biography it was stated that Amanda was the first of six generations of her family to be buried in the Armstrong Grove Cemetery. Some of Amanda's five generations of descendants that are also buried in the Armstrong Grove Cemetery include the following: Edith Pamela [Wallace] Follett, and Eunice Eleanor [Ella] [Wallace] Clark, daughters; Fern Charlotte Follett and Grace Eleanor [Clark] Richmond, grand daughters; Bert Lee Clark, grandson; Matthew Wallace Richmond, Wayne Clark Richmond, and Wilbert Walter Richmond, great grandsons; John William Richmond, great great grandson; Mary Elizabeth Grussing, great great great grand daughter; and Jay Walter Richmond, great great great grandson.

The above paragraph also contributed by James M. Richmond, This biography in its entirety was recently published in the Armstrong Journal, page 5, Armstrong, Iowa, February 9, 2005.

Interment in Armstrong Grove cemetery
 

Emmet Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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